Sylvie Simmons Quotes & Sayings

I'm not trying to ally myself with the rock stars of the universe. — Sylvie Simmons

Leonard Cohen can give you "Leonard Cohen" - the self-deprecating wit, the slow, considered speech, the perfectly-honed anecdote - Tom Waits is far more comfortable giving a journalist "Tom Waits" the character, whose conversation is really a series of strange tales, learned or ad-libbed. — Sylvie Simmons

I love Tom [Waits] for the same reason I love Leonard Cohen, which is that they are both one-offs, templates; they both seemed old, or at least dressed old when they were young; both kind of lived their careers backwards. — Sylvie Simmons

Everybody was in tears. You turned on the radio or the television, and it was nothing but Gainsbourg. With typical British music journalist disdain, I just figured it was a testament to how poor French pop was if there was this much fuss about a guy who had one hit record, 'Je T'Aime (Moi Non Plus)'. — Sylvie Simmons

A French friend brought over a load of Gainsbourg vinyl and I worked my way through it: by the time I got to L'Histoire De Melody Nelson (1969) I was thinking, 'How can this man have died before I got to know his music?' I was a convert. — Sylvie Simmons

Even though it felt completely natural - strangely enough - recording an album, I was very shy about making it public. — Sylvie Simmons

I had wonderful love but I did not give back wonderful love, I was unable to reply to their love. Because I was obsessed with some fictional sense of separation, I couldn't touch the thing that was offered to me,and it was offered to me everywhere. — Sylvie Simmons

Not so much that I wanted to give up rock writing, but I also wanted to try something new. So I moved to a crumbling stately heap on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere in southwest France, about 60 miles from Bordeaux: wine instead of cocaine. — Sylvie Simmons

I didn't want to live in LA again, although I'd go back every couple of months to do an interview, usually with a heavy rock or metal band. And as the decade went on, so much of that scene had become totally corrupted by too much coke and money and silicone. — Sylvie Simmons